So it is Valentine’s Day again-and me being me, I think I should write again about it. Sometime ago I wrote more on what the day ought to mean; and another time I wrote again on Valentine’s Day to encourage someone that God really cares and loves you; and that indeed He has a purpose for your love story-and that even if you may not yet see the future; you can know that when you trust Him you will never regret it.
So I feel I should write again on the topic; but at the same time I also feel I do not want to merely regurgitate my posts from yesteryear. So I thought maybe I will share a bit of the why regarding why I see or feel the need to continuously post on the day. The issue is personal—the pain of feeling lonely, hurt and in need of an embrace is a sensation that is all too familiar to me. I even have a book on some of the poems I wrote in various states of feeling broken, lonely and wondering just what my future held for me.
I grew up reclusive, which became shy, nervous and incredibly awkward around members of the opposite sex. Making friends, and I mean real friends with whom I could be completely me was never easy. I always felt as though the potential to be hurt by broken trust would be too much to bear and opening up was a burden to big for me to bear-Never mind that I felt the weight of shame and hypocrisy bearing very heavily me due to a weight of pornography I seemed powerless to shake. But I believed in love.
I believed in the beauty of what a relationship could be (I still do) and I held on to a conception of blissful companionship in the arms of a woman who would be to my heart. The thought of how it would feel to hold in my arms someone with whom I could completely be me—and have my “us against the world love story” would at the same time be an equivocating giver of strength and sorrow. Strength that maybe a better tomorrow was on its way and a sorrowful longing for that future day to be here and now. I watched many a teaching on marriage; and I read a few books as well-I prepared to be that guy for her—but for one reason or another, it did not happen.
And in this context, Valentine’s Day was a painful time for me. A time where maybe a fire was burning within me; but I had no-one to share the flame with; where I longed for a warm embrace and a loving smile to look me back in the eyes but did not quite have that. I remember one time spending the day listening to Linkin Park’s “Valentine’s Day” and Greenday’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” on repeat for the whole day and feeling lovelorn for a lover that life was not giving to me; and maybe if I had gone to a doctor I may have been labelled as depressed.
But overtime, I learned to discern the lies from the truth; and thanks to great friends, I realised that life does not begin when one has a relationship. I learnt and am still learning to be free; to be me; to enjoy every day and to celebrate even more what Valentine’s Day is all about; the sanctity of marriage; its beauty and need to be held in honour amongst all.
And it is my hope that I can touch a heart with the love of God; to make you realise that the Creator, God our Father, has made himself the primary Valentine for mankind in His unbridled declaration that He loves us. Because indeed, Christ himself is the very gift that He deemed fit to give to you and me, that even if everything else left us in doubt; we may know with absolute certainty that we are the Beloved of a good good God.
Selah.